It's about spontaneous and unplanned interactions that provide new paths for you. Yes, you can still have those remotely - but they are no where nearly as frequent, nor anywhere near as impactful. They simply can't be - your fighting millions of years of social evolution if you think otherwise. Heck I doubt most of us remember a fraction of spontaneous in person interactions with others in our day to day life - but let me tell you there are a handful in my past that made all the difference in where I am today. None would have happened if I had been working remotely.
Not one of them.
You simply can't quantize the value of those interactions and I fear for those who are seemingly so willing to casually tossing those away. Yes, commuting sucks. Yes, committing to a schedule sucks. Yes, listening to the same story from Bob for the millionth time while you are trying to focus on something else sucks. But there are other benefits that are irreplaceable too.
Probably the best illustration I can think of in pop culture is the Star Trek:TNG episode where Picard's artificial heart dies and he has that whole near death experience with Q. It's a great analogy for this whole discussion. I'm too am glad I had the bloody nose early on and the much more interesting life overall.
It's just different now. After covid, even more so.
Nearly all of our younger hires have their social networks _entirely online_, and most of our older employees are in a similar situation albeit with a few token IRL friends.
That said, I work in game development and I suspect that causes some selection bias.
Out of curiosity, I hear a lot of negative things about working in game development. How do you like it?
That said, as an older programmer I would not expect to ever earn anywhere near your earning potential for the skills you'll gain, if you were to work outside of gaming. It doesn't matter that you might single-handedly build the infrastructure to host millions in MAU on a shoestring budget; the profit margins are razor thin, if there's any profit at all, and the wages reflect that.
Your customers don't want to pay you, investors don't want to buy in, the media dislikes you by default, and your industry is saturated with competition.
All that said, I have worked outside of gaming and still keep coming back to it. I've taken substantial pay cuts, leaving good jobs of my own volition, to return on several occasions. I do it because I've never experienced so much _freedom_ as I do as a game developer. If there's something I want to try, build or learn then I generally start on that _immediately_. Nowhere else have I felt so able to express myself and better myself.
* Addendum: YMMV. I've worked mostly in small studios, on Indie titles and subcontracting on AAA titles. I imagine things are different at very large studios.
I wish it were same, but, even as someone who grew up with more online relationships than meatspace ones, I'd be lying if I said it is. Maybe VR in some 15-minutes-after-tomorrow future can bridge the gap.
I experienced how "not the same" it is with in-person and then remote interactions with other young people in college classes and then with older people in work, and, in both cases, I felt things were lost once we went remote.
The only difference is no one is going to tell you to be quiet and get back to work. No one is going to send an email about how there are too many people wasting time around the water cooler!
I just don't see the advantage.
Well, secret in the sense of fully accessible to everyone in management at your company.
I'm in my 30s now, and much of this is unfamiliar to me, but I'm interested in learning more about it. My social network has definitely shrunk significantly these past two years.
That's going to be a lively place though. You might wanna try searching for smaller communities for more niche things.
That's for discord, anyways. My wife uses Facebook for her things (much to my chagrin).
That sounds good. I do have a Discord, but I've only ever used it to make voice calls with a friend of mine...but I think I'll definitely check out these public servers. I know my old university has some too but they don't show up on Discord search, so I'm guessing they're private.
Thanks again--appreciate the response. Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur by how out-of-the-loop I am: Telegram, Discord, etc.
These kids could enter a fully WFH workforce without blinking an eye and continue to develop life long relationships with their new colleagues if they desired. I've done both. But to be honest, the only friends I've maintained from previous in person jobs are the ones who I also connected with via a chat program.